Chapter 1: The Cosmic Sea

Everything went black in an instant. One moment Yuna was laughing at a stupid meme on his phone while crossing the road, the next the truck’s headlights swallowed him whole. 

Pain exploded through his body, the world flipped violently, and then… nothing.

Now he floated in silence, surrounded by an endless deep blue that shimmered like liquid starlight. 

A strange cold pressed against his skin, weightless and calm. Where am I? His thoughts moved slowly, heavy, as if drifting through water. He tried to remember. 

A truck. The screech of tires. The sickening impact that slammed into his side. He had been so distracted, just one careless step, and everything ended.

Yet he was still breathing. Calm, steady breaths filled his chest even though he was clearly underwater. No choking, no burning lungs. Just cool liquid all around him, gentle and strange. This can’t be real. 

Am I dead? Small memories flickered back  the vibration of his phone, the silly joke that made him smile right before he stepped off the curb, the faint smell of rain on the asphalt. 

Then the blinding lights and the crunch of metal. He should be terrified, but a heavy calm settled over him instead.

Slowly, he began to sink. His body drifted downward through the cosmic sea as the deep blue gradually lightened. 

The bottom wasn’t dark and scary like the ocean floor he remembered from videos. It glowed softly, covered in a blanket of cosmic dust scattered with tiny distant stars. 

His feet finally touched the ground, but he still felt completely weightless, as if gravity had simply forgotten about him.

All around him rested large translucent eggs, each one the size of a human baby. One by one they started to crack open with soft pulses of light. 

From inside emerged small white souls, glowing gently like delicate children made of moonlight. They didn’t cry or struggle. 

They simply stretched their tiny forms and began swimming upward with innocent grace, heading toward something far above.

Yuna tilted his head back and followed their path with his eyes. His breath caught in his throat.

Rising from the cosmic floor and stretching endlessly into the distance was a tree so massive it defied understanding. Its trunk was wider than any building he had ever seen, 

its bark glowing with veins of liquid gold and silver. Branches twisted upward like living lightning, disappearing into a bright, star-filled sky that shimmered far above the sea. 

Soft golden beams of light rained down from its highest leaves, cutting through the blue water like pillars from heaven.

The young souls swam toward it, drawn like moths to a flame.

For a long moment Yuna just stared, his heart pounding even though he was sure it shouldn’t be beating anymore. Wonder and fear mixed inside him, along with something sharper raw determination.

He kicked off the dusty bottom and began to swim upward too, joining the stream of glowing white souls. He moved faster and faster, chasing the light. Too fast.

With a sudden burst, he blasted out of the cosmic sea and into open air.

“Ahhh!!”

For a split second he hung suspended, weightless and startled, before gravity yanked him back down. 

He crashed face-first into warm, soft sand. The impact knocked the breath out of him, even though his chest somehow felt strangely light and empty.

“Welcome back,” a calm voice said from somewhere above.

Yuna’s face was buried in the sand. He spat out a mouthful of grains and mumbled, “Umm… what is this place?”

He pushed himself up slowly, brushing sand from his eyes and hair. When he finally lifted his head, his whole body froze. 

Standing right in front of him was a boy who looked exactly like him  same messy dark hair, same face, same confused eyes staring back. Only this version seemed a little more tired, a little more knowing.

“Once again, welcome back,” the other Yuna said with a small smirk.

“What!?” Yuna scrambled backward, heart hammering. “Who… who are you?”

The other boy laughed lightly. “Haha, I know you’ll be confused. Come on, follow me.”

Yuna had no choice. His legs felt shaky, but he stood and trailed after the stranger who wore his own face. As they walked away from the shore, the colossal Tree loomed even larger overhead. 

From down here on the beach it looked impossibly huge, its golden veins pulsing gently against the star-filled sky, roots stretching out like ancient pillars.

“So it might sound crazy,” the other Yuna began as they walked, “but it’s true. I think we won’t get another chance after this one.”

“I’m confused,” Yuna blurted out, questions flooding his mind. “What is this place? And who are you? Why do you look exactly like me?”

The other Yuna glanced back with a calm expression. “I’m real, just like you. You’re dead. Actually… we all are.”

“We? Who’s we?”

Instead of answering right away, the other Yuna kept walking and motioned for him to follow. 

They approached a simple wooden gate made from the same glowing bark as the Tree. Beyond it sat a small camp  just a crackling campfire surrounded by four more figures.

The other Yuna stopped at the edge of the circle. “This is what I mean by we.”

Yuna stepped closer and felt his stomach drop. Sitting around the fire were four more versions of himself. Different clothes, slightly different ages and expressions, but every single one had his face. 

They all turned to look at him at the same time, their eyes filled with a mix of curiosity, pity, and quiet exhaustion.

“So tell us,” one Yuna sitting on a rock said, “what did you do when you were alive?”

“I’m surprised this time it only took twenty years,” another added. This one wasn’t a boy but a girl, her voice soft but tired. “You died pretty early.”

“Lost your chance now. Let’s just live here,” a third one muttered.

Yuna looked up again and saw hundreds of figures all versions of himself already climbing the massive Tree in the distance. “What is that!?”

The Yuna who had led him here smiled faintly. “Since you died, there’s a chance that one of them will get to be reborn.”

Yuna’s eyes widened. “Then why aren’t you all going?”

The girl Yuna shrugged. “Because we’re tired. Me? I died fifteen thousand years ago. I had a friend… we were going to marry when we grew up, but he died from cancer. The sorrow took me too.” 

She looked into the fire. “It’s almost impossible. Only one will get to be reborn. You were one of the lucky ones this cycle, but now you’re back here. Dead. Wasted your life.”

Yuna slowly sat down beside them, the weight of her words sinking in. “So you mean… I won’t be able to go back?” Sadness thickened his voice.

“Don’t worry, you still have a chance,” the one who led him said gently. “But you’re dead now. You can’t go back to that life.”

“But my mother… she must be waiting.” Tears slipped out without hesitation, hot against his cheeks.

“Come here.” The girl Yuna Tsuma, he would later learn pulled him into a hug. “We all know how much you love your mother.”

They sat together around the campfire as the golden light from the Tree flickered in the distance. For a while no one spoke. 

Then one of the others broke the silence. “Alright, don’t mope. Afterlife isn’t so bad. There are things better than rebirth if you know where to look.”

“But let’s clarify our names,” the leader continued with a small laugh, “because we all can’t be called Yuna. I’ll take my brother’s name. From today, call me Leon.”

The girl smiled softly. “Call me Tsuma. She was my closest friend, so I’ll take her name.”

The third one shrugged. “Okay… umm, call me Soia.”

“And lastly,” the oldest-looking one grinned, “I’m the only one who died from old age, so call me Grandpa Yuna.”

They all laughed, the sound warm against the quiet night. Yuna felt a tiny spark of comfort.

“I think I’ll keep the name Yuna,” he said quietly.

“It’s fine,” Leon replied with a nod. “Okay, tomorrow let’s head south. I heard there’s a city that way.”

The group cheered lightly, and for a moment Yuna felt a little better. But his mother’s eyes stayed burned in his mind, impossible to forget.

“Bye, Mom…” he whispered almost to himself, staring into the flickering flames.